Masahiro Nakadai

On-demand transfer of trapped photons on a chip.

Researchers experimentally demonstrate on-demand transfer of trapped photons on a photonic crystal chip for the first time. Photonic crystal nanocavities, which have modal volumes of the order of a cubic wavelength in the material, are of great interest as flexible platforms for manipulating photons. Recent developments in ultra-high quality factor nanocavities with long photon lifetimes have encouraged us to develop an ultra-compact and flexible photon manipulation technology where photons are trapped in networks of such nanocavities. The most fundamental requirement is the on-demand transfer of photons to and from the trapped states of arbitrary nanocavities. We experimentally demonstrate photon transfer between two nearly resonant nanocavities at arbitrary positions on a chip, triggered by the irradiation of a third nonresonant nanocavity using an optical control pulse. We obtain a high transfer efficiency of ~90% with a photon lifetime of ~200 ps.

Design of slotted high quality factor photonic-crystal nanocavities embedded in electro-optic polymers

We improve design quality factors of slotted photonic crystal nanocavities embedded in electro-optic polymers (EOPs), which enables control of resonant wavelengths without the use of light-absorbing free carriers. We form nanocavities by modifying single- and double-slotted line-defect waveguides with lattice-constant modulations analytically determined based on dispersions of the waveguides. A double-slotted nanocavity achieves a fourfold increase in Q factor (36 million) compared to a single-slotted nanocavity with similar modulation of lattice constants. Both structures can realize large concentration of light in the EOP region (50%), and resonant wavelength modulations of ~0.01% are expected with applied voltage of 2 V.